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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   30012 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 21, 2024

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Kind of the second one? I'm saying we should have a firm ethical principle that we never authorize putting large numbers of people at the mercy of the state unless we're confident that all of the relevant decision-makers prefer positive outcomes for those people, either inherently or via incentives. (To me that's a core American value.) And, as a special case of that, that because of what Hitler did and said, we should treat any willingness to speak like Hitler and court the pro-ethnic-cleansing vote as disqualifying. I'm not saying that anyone should be able to veto any policy or politician by accusing a politician of being secretly Hitler (everyone I've ever voted for has had a non-zero chance of being secretly Hitler), but yes I do think somebody proposing retroactive illegalization and mass deportation should have to spend a lot of time credibly signaling that they're not secretly Hitler, enough that 50%+1 of voters believe them. Trump is more focused right now on signaling that he is, if anything. His response to being called a fascist by his ex-Chief of Staff was to call him a lying degenerate, not even to rotely say "I believe in freedom and compassion" as used to be the bare minimum standard for running for elected office.

Kind of the second one? I'm saying we should have a firm ethical principle that we never authorize putting large numbers of people at the mercy of the state unless we're confident that all of the relevant decision-makers prefer positive outcomes for those people, either inherently or via incentives.

What's your position on the current crisis taking place in Palestine? If you're really concerned about ethnic cleansing and minorities being rounded up into concentration camps there's a much more motivated effort taking place over there with Harris/Biden's full support. If you're seriously concerned about these issues then you're also going to have to take a firm stand against the left as well.

Discussed elsewhere in this thread.

Thank you for giving a serious and clear answer (to both posts). I respect your conviction, but I think that there is no realistic chance of Not-Hitler satisfying your conditions.

The only positive outcome for these people is being allowed to stay where they are; they know it and we know it. That’s why the destroy all of their original documentation. So anyone who can credibly promise to deport people is going to be someone for whom positive outcomes for natives ultimately trumps (ha) positive outcomes for immigrants.

as long as your government can credibly promise to do it humanely

I’m fine with this, but it depends on where you set the bar for credible. As far as I’m concerned, all modern Western first world societies (including Trump’s America) hit this bar by default. Note that China isn’t deporting anyone, they’re dealing very harshly with a permanent population, which I would expect to encourage more cruelty rather than less. Once you deport people you don’t have to worry about their future behaviour.

Personally, I don’t believe that Trump is secretly Hitler.

His response to being called a fascist by his ex-Chief of Staff was to call him a lying degenerate, not even to rotely say "I believe in freedom and compassion"

This is just standard politics. Saying “I believe in freedom and compassion” makes you sound like Hitler being mealy-mouthed. Being made to recite slogans is a standard feature of any show trial because it’s humiliating and it makes you look guilty. Calling your accuser a liar is the better look, regardless of your political inclinations.

Por qué no los dos? I agree that Trump can no longer manage to say anything anti-Hitler that sounds strong and sincere, or emphasize part of his platform that is blatantly un-Nazi, that's kind of the point.

I'm saying that for twenty years now right-wingers have gone up on platforms and said variations on, "I think maybe the immigration rate should be a little lower. I don't dislike immigrants, I'm not Hitler, I have immigrant friends please don't hurt me". It's a humiliation ritual that doesn't stop people calling them Nazis and makes them look pathetic. Raw politics is about impressions a lot of the time, and repudiating views you genuinely don't hold looks bad. It looks defensive and makes you dance on other people's strings.

In short, even though Trump is not a Nazi and has a platform that is definitely un-Nazi, it is not a good political move for him to spend time repudiating Nazi accusations.

As an existence proof that you can be a pro-freedom and pro-compassion right-wing opposition leader and not sound weak and performative, have some Churchill.

All this means that the people of any country have the right, and should have the power by constitutional action, by free unfettered elections, with secret ballot, to choose or change the character or form of government under which they dwell; that freedom of speech and thought should reign; that courts of justice, independent of the executive, unbiased by any party, should administer laws which have received the broad assent of large majorities or are consecrated by time and custom. Here are the title deeds of freedom which should lie in every cottage home. Here is the message of the British and American peoples to mankind. Let us preach what we practise – let us practise what we preach.

I have now stated the two great dangers which menace the homes of the people: War and Tyranny. I have not yet spoken of poverty and privation which are in many cases the prevailing anxiety. But if the dangers of war and tyranny are removed, there is no doubt that science and co-operation can bring in the next few years to the world, certainly in the next few decades newly taught in the sharpening school of war, an expansion of material well-being beyond anything that has yet occurred in human experience. Now, at this sad and breathless moment, we are plunged in the hunger and distress which are the aftermath of our stupendous struggle; but this will pass and may pass quickly, and there is no reason except human folly or sub-human crime which should deny to all the nations the inauguration and enjoyment of an age of plenty. I have often used words which I learned fifty years ago from a great Irish-American orator, a friend of mine, Mr. Bourke Cockran. “There is enough for all. The earth is a generous mother; she will provide in plentiful abundance food for all her children if they will but cultivate her soil in justice and in peace.” So far I feel that we are in full agreement.

I'm sorry, did you just refer to Winston Churchill as pro-compassion? Churchill the same guy whose inaction during the Bengal famine probably caused millions of additional deaths, and who stated that any relief efforts sent to India would accomplish little to nothing, as Indians were "breeding like rabbits"?

On Native Americans and aboriginals:

I do not admit ... for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.

On migration to the UK:

In 1955, Churchill expressed his support for the slogan "Keep England White" with regards to immigration from the West Indies.

On Arabs:

Churchill described the Arabs as a "lower manifestation" than the Jews, whom he viewed as a "higher grade race" compared to the "great hordes of Islam". He referred to Palestinians as "barbaric hordes who ate little but camel dung".

On the Chinese:

In 1902 Churchill called China a "barbaric nation" and advocated for the "partition of China". He wrote:

I think we shall have to take the Chinese in hand and regulate them. I believe that as civilized nations become more powerful they will get more ruthless, and the time will come when the world will impatiently bear the existence of great barbaric nations who may at any time arm themselves and menace civilized nations. I believe in the ultimate partition of China – I mean ultimate. I hope we shall not have to do it in our day. The Aryan stock is bound to triumph.

More on the Chinese:

Violet Bonham-Carter asked Churchill's opinion about a Labour Party visit to China. Churchill replied: "I hate people with slit eyes and pigtails. I don't like the look of them or the smell of them..."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_views_of_Winston_Churchill

The fact that you're arguing "Trump comes off as so racist and cruel - he should be more like Churchill" leads me to wonder if this entire thread is just an elaborate troll. Or if you're really just that historically illiterate.

I'm saying we should have a firm ethical principle that we never authorize putting large numbers of people at the mercy of the state unless we're confident that all of the relevant decision-makers prefer positive outcomes for those people, either inherently or via incentives.

This implies we should never go to war, even defensively.

We should never fight a war wherein our leaders want the enemy dead as a terminal goal, only as a regrettable instrumental one.

I don't think the rightness or wrongness of an action can be determined solely on the basis of which moods are missing.

Netanyahu: "I will not rest until Yahya Sinwar and the rest of Hamas leadership are dead in the ground, as punishment for the shocking cruelty of October 7th."

You: "Boooo!"

Alternatively:

Netanyahu: "While I'm not happy about it, the destruction of Hamas is the only way to ensure peace and stability in Israel, Palestine and the surrounding region. I wish there was another way, but we've exhausted all other possibilities."

You: "Yaaay!"

Followed by literally zero difference in the military strategy and tactics the IDF pursue.

I think you're putting far too much stock in the (intrinsically unknowable) motivations and psychological states of political leaders, as opposed to the actual actions they undertake. You seem to be saying that a just war, conducted with humility, a clearly defined goal and taking care (insofar as is practicable) to minimize civilian casualties is wrong if the people behind it are pursuing the destruction of their enemy as a terminal goal; whereas a brutal, bloodthirsty war, with no clearly defined end state, in which war crimes are a commonplace, and displaying utter callousness towards collateral damage - such a war could be a-ok in your book, provided the leaders make the right noises about the military action being "regrettable". (I leave it up to you to decide whether Israel's military action in Gaza is better described by the latter or former.) It's politics of the symbolic, again.

You seem to be saying that a just war, conducted with humility, a clearly defined goal and taking care (insofar as is practicable) to minimize civilian casualties is wrong if the people behind it are pursuing the destruction of their enemy as a terminal goal

Not quite. I'm saying that it's wrong to support a war you expect to be brutal, bloodthirsty, etc. and that one of the fallible-but-important heuristics feeding into that is if the people who would be leading it are saying brutal and bloodthirsty things. Also that "vibes" are the main thing that determine whether your occupying armies so kind they inspire cults praying for their return or whether they tend to massacre civilians in their downtime. But yes I only care about vibes to the extent that they're predictors or causes of actions.

Putting aside our inability to read minds, if they conduct the war the same way the latter speech does seem preferable to the former. Rage and hate are pretty unpalatable in anyone not already firmly on your team.

Rage and hate are pretty unpalatable in anyone not already firmly on your team.

No they aren't.

Remember Scott's article about not sounding like a robot. Refusing to express rage when you've been grievously wronged makes you sound like a robot and reduces sympathy for you.

we should treat any willingness to speak like Hitler and court the pro-ethnic-cleansing vote as disqualifying

Per my earlier comment, the Biden administration repatriated as many or more immigrants than the Trump administration. By any objective measure, Biden has done as much or more to promote "ethnic cleansing" in the last four years than Trump did in the four years prior. But that's okay says you, because while Biden's actions may have promoted ethnic cleansing, he wasn't "speaking like Hitler" while doing it. He refused to "court" the pro-ethnic-cleansing vote in his speeches or public statements - he merely gave them a significant chunk of the policy package they wanted.

This is politics of the symbolic from top to bottom. You can do whatever you want as President, as long as you're "nice" and "civil" about it, and don't remind people (even inadvertently) of old Adolf.

I'm not sure how to democracy if I can't use "this politician seems like he might do X" to inform my voting decisions. I disapprove of the deportations under Biden, but I mostly attribute them to weakness, not ideology. This ultimately matters, because, again, I don't want the state to kill millions of people due to a very well-known failure mode of ideology. And I don't trust anybody who's unusually willing to tapdance on the edge of that cliff, because even if they don't end up falling, they're betraying a fundamental lack of moral center.

When Trump ran in 2016, I was mainly worried that he was shifting the Overton Window and otherwise laying the groundwork for the next President like him to be significantly worse. Give or take the Grover Cleveland of it all, this is basically still what I'm afraid of.

Of course you can and should use "this politician might do X" to inform your voting decisions. I'm just countenancing you that you ought to consider the fact that Trump has already been in office for four years and nothing remotely like the sequence of events you're describing transpired.

I mostly attribute them to weakness, not ideology.

How convenient, that whenever Republicans do something one disapproves of it's because they're moral mutants, but whenever Democrats do something one disapproves of (up to and including literally the same thing you were just criticising Republicans for) it's because their hands were forced. It couldn't possibly be that Biden (who co-authored the 1986 bill introducing sentencing disparities for crack vs. cocaine, widely criticised as racist; and who once eulogized a former Exalted Cyclops in the KKK) is more racist than he presents himself, or that spending 8 years as VP for a President who got elected on an anti-immigration platform might have rubbed off on him? No, perish the thought.

Fundamental attribution error in a nutshell. Out of curiosity, is there anything a Democrat President has done which you disapprove of and which you believe represents a moral failing on their part?

All of the negative things I've attributed to Biden are ones I see as (partly) moral failings, as well as the big one where he insisted on running for re-election, and still hasn't stepped down from his office, despite being increasingly incapable of performing his duties, out of what seems to be selfish pride. And yes, totally agree that he's at least historically been racist. Most of the immigration policies I hate were put into place under Bill Clinton, and I think that's at best him callously sacrificing people he didn't need to sacrifice in pursuit of largely imaginary gains. I could definitely go on.

I don't know, I feel like I probably don't need to be in this thread anymore since Harris and Trump seem to be making basically the same case as their joint closing argument. I guess I am curious to hear your account(s) of why A: lifelong/devout Republicans who have worked with Trump closely seem to be making the same attribution error as I am, despite coming from completely different biases, and B: why Trump can talk about the degenerate traitors saying he likes concentration camps all day and never get around to saying "concentration camps are bad."

I'm afraid I don't quite understand what you're asking me by questions A and B.

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